A Prayer for Holy Saturday
God of light and healing, we come seeking wholeness.
Jesus, the Light of the World, rests in the tomb.
We wait for the coming of the Rising Sun to show us the way.
Hear our prayer for his coming!
Indeed, saving God, all creation waits with groaning
and longing for the salvation promised to our ancestors
and revealed in the resurrection of your Son Jesus.
Teach us how to wait for the bursting forth of your saving power
when all will be reconciled to you in Christ Jesus.
We wait in hope, O God.
We wait in the company of all the angels and saints of heaven.
Through their intercession may we have the power to say:
Holy, Holy, Holy is our God.
Amen.
Adapted from Holy Saturday, Morning Prayer
Mercy Prayer Book
Amen
Sunshine and blue sky,
quiet fields and farmhouses
Traffic as usual,
busy holiday weekend
On the shoulder of the road,
a skunk carcass
black and white
and sun-bleached viscera,
after weeks of decay
Life and death
in the usual intimate
and careless embrace
Side by side
in a dance old as
incarnation
‘Christ yesterday and today,
the beginning and the end,
Alpha and Omega,
all time belongs to Him,
and all ages;
to Him be glory and power,
through every age and for ever. ‘
(from Easter vigil, Service of Light)
If Holy Saturday is a time of anticipation and looking forward to Christ’s resurrection, it’s also a time of waiting, fearing and doubting. Living on the other side of the resurrection, after Easter, I still find myself in a world waiting in doubt, fear, often without much expectation; these are the daily realities with which we deal. Terrorism, poverty, unprepared for illness and death; the all too familiar face of a world still untransformed in so many ways, even after the resurrection of Jesus. It seems to me that in some important ways, Holy Saturday never completely ended; or that, aside from some times and places of respite, it has reconstituted and continued as we wait for the consummation of all things. Come, Lord Jesus, as if for the first time.
This is really a horrific day. It is compiling the fear and the loss. Not knowing the resurrection would occur, someone like Peter only has his rejection of his dear friend, mentor and God to press him that much more. There is no sun rising tomorrow and no joy in the morning. This is a living hell. This is virtually more than can be borne, this dark day. This approaches, for them, Gethsemane in magnitude. They slept through Jesus’ trial but are not asleep for this. Their attention has been gotten. Everything is multiplied today.
I led a study in Psalm 22 in my church’s men’s group this morning. One of the things I’ve found curious is that Jesus didn’t quote a comforting scripture out of Psalm 23 or Psalm 91 while dying on the cross, he went to the opening line from this psalm.
To me, it’s comforting to know when we feel forsaken, and before we see and hear from God again, Jesus was there himself.
Even in our alienation, God has crossed over to us.